I am not sure if this helps me really. Sometimes I have the feeling that I learn more, if we are (or I am) alone on the water. Maybe because I play less with the trim and concentrate more on tiller and main sheet. I "listen" (or sense, feel) more to the boat instead of looking to the others and asking myself what is wrong. Maybe nothing is wrong. I hope that that is not to philosophic and helps a bit.
Cheers,
Klaus
Good point. I think one must initially learn to sail their boat alone and feel for what works. If you always have someone else around which can make you over-analyze things a little. I almost always sail by myself with no one else around and if I do have a "sparring" partner it is a friend sailing an 18HT solo. I feel as though I have fairly decent boat speed, but hard to say. They always point higher than me (they almost have to pinch a little given the sail area) and run lower (same deal). I find the groove I normally try to find and go from there. If I tried to point with them I would go nowhere. I do think I had better VMG though. Hard to really draw a comparison though sailing against him. I have raced my blade once and then it was only for 1.5 races and I was overweight 2-up against the other blades which were uni.
